Book Retailer of the Year 2025
Book Retailer of the Year Winner and Shortlist
Proudly sponsored by Penguin Random House
Nielsen BookScan shows the UK’s print book market contracted in 2024, but you wouldn’t know if from these five retailers. They combine three internet stores with two big high-street names, and with consumers’ spending still under pressure there is a notable tilt towards value-led bookselling.
This shortlist will be completed by two more retailers: the winners of the Independent Bookshop of the Year and Children’s Bookseller of the Year.
Winner
Waterstones
Waterstones wins this award for the first time since 2020. It’s a reward for a standout year of growth on the high street and online despite multiple retail challenges, with sales jumping 17% and profits nearly trebling in its latest reporting period.
Last year also brought more than a thousand extra book and author events and the opening of eight new shops, including one within John Lewis on London’s Oxford Street. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of the Month joined the roster of regular promotions led by the Waterstones Books of the Year, which had two of their highest-selling recipients yet in Asako Yuzuki’s Butter and Ross Montgomery’s I Am Rebel.
Waterstones used big events and promos to get more than its fair share of sales for block- buster releases from the likes of David Nicholls and Sally Rooney, and ambitious activations included the Booker Library and Paddington installations at its Piccadilly store. But publishers value its head office and shop-floor teams at least as much for their ability to champion debuts, mid-list literary names and translated fiction. “Working with Waterstones is an absolute joy… they’re a force for good in the book world,” said one leading publisher. Another called it “The best bookselling operation the English-speaking world has to offer”.
“They’ve shown amazing growth on a very tough high street, and that’s so important for the whole books ecosystem,” agreed the judges. They also admired a stepping-up of its outreach work in schools and paid internships.
This shortlist includes the winners of the Independent Bookshop of the Year and Children’s Bookseller of the Year awards: Wonderland Bookshop and the Heath Bookshop.
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Shortlist
Books2Door
Online retailer Books2Door—a sister company to multi Nibbies nominee Sweet Cherry Publishing—is shortlisted here for the fourth year in a row. It sold around 2.5 million books in 2024. Big discounts are its main attraction, and late in the year it opened SaveOnBooks to sell surplus stock for £1 or less. But it has sophisticated marketing and social media too, including via a new TikTok Studio.
Bookshop.org
Bookshop.org was a saviour to indie booksellers during COVID, and momentum has continued. Its affiliated shops topped 600 in 2024, while money generated passed £4m. Areas of focus included pre-orders, Christmas promos and independent publishers’ lists. New recycling scheme Bookloop helped improve retail’s sustainability, and there was good charity work with Booktrust and Bookbanks.
Waterstones
Waterstones and its stores have won more than a dozen bookselling Nibbies, and it is shortlisted here for the tenth time in 11 years. It stepped up another gear in its latest financial year, as sales grew 17% and profits more than doubled. There were eight new stores, more than 1,000 events and some popular new promos. “Working with Waterstones is an absolute joy,” said one leading publisher.
World of Books
The UK’s biggest second-hand bookseller bucked wider retail trends by lifting sales 25% to 29 million books in 2024. It streamlined its consumer channels into a single World of Books brand, launched a new app, embraced Shopify and pushed further into new-book sales. Throughout, it championed its role in the circular economy and engaged with publishers and authors to highlight the value of second-hand sales.
The Works
Discount bookseller The Works is back on the Nibbies shortlists for the first time in 12 years. It reflects a repositioning of its 511 shops and website as places to go for quality as well as quantity and discounts. Books accounted for nearly a third of The Works’ total sales in 2024 and for children’s publishers in particular it was one of the most important routes for reaching lighter readers.
